Phase transitions in escape processes of metal nanowires
ORAL
Abstract
Thermally induced conductance jumps of metal nanowires are modeled using stochastic Ginzburg-Landau field theories. The activation rate displays nontrivial dependence on nanowire length, and undergoes first- or second-order-like transitions, with a critical length proportional to the wire radius. Several experimental manifestations of the predicted phase transition are identified, including the temperature- and radius-dependence of peak heights in conductance histograms, and the length dependence of I-V characteristics of gold nanowires.
*This work was supported by NSF Grant Nos. 0312028 and 0351964.
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